


Unwelcome Visitor

by SarcasticSmiler



Series: Chicken AU [4]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Animal Death, Chicken!AU, Gen, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, not crack this time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 05:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7922431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarcasticSmiler/pseuds/SarcasticSmiler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dwalin receives an unwelcome visitor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unwelcome Visitor

“Nori, how many times do I have to tell you?” Dori sighed rather long sufferingly, “No phones at the dinner table.”

“But...” Nori started, frowning at his phone and the text he'd just received, “he just cancelled on me.”

“Not surprising, considering what's happened,” Dori hummed, not looking at the middle brother as he helped Ori cut up his meat into bitesize portions.

“What do you mean? What happened?” Nori asked turning his frown to Dori.

“He had a visit from mister fox,” Ori answered, trying to get his cutlery back from Dori's meddling hands.

“Mister fox?”

“Yes, it seems-Ori, stop fussing and let me do this, you'll hurt yourself otherwise.”

“No I won't,” Ori huffed, lower lip slipping out to pout.

“Dori! What happened?”

“Oh, well Bilbo said Dwalin had a fox get into one of his coops last night.”

“Fuck. The birds?”

“Language. All the ones in the coop were killed before he realised what was going on and chased the fox off, it's a rather upsetting state of affairs really.”

“I have to go,” Nori said abruptly, standing from the table roughly enough to send the water in their glasses sloshing over the table cloth.

“Nori!” Dori scolded, but Nori had already gone, the front door slamming in his wake.

-x-

“Come on, open the damn door,” Nori muttered as he hammered on Dwalin's door.

“Nori?” Dwalin's eyes were suspiciously red when he finally answered, his voice cracking on Nori's name.

It wasn't often that Nori was struck with Dori-like levels of concern, but the sight of his clearly upset boyfriend was a sure fire way to get his inner mother hen clucking.

“Come on, in,” he said, shooing Dwalin back into his house.

“What are you doing here?”

“Why didn't you tell me?” Nori asked in answer, nudging Dwalin into the kitchen. Tea was needed, of that he was sure, possibly with something a little stronger added in for good measure.

“About?” Dwalin hedged.

“The fox.”

“Oh,” Dwalin swallowed heavily, blinking quickly in an attempt to rid himself of the tell-tale dampness he could feel rising again.

“Who did it get?”

“The old girls.”

“So none of your show or breeding stock?”

“No, just the old retired show girls.”

Pushing a mug of tea into Dwalin’s hand, Nori grab the other and tugged the bigger man into the livingroom.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, curling up on the sofa, arms around Dwalin as he slumped against him.

“It’s my fault. I knew there was a loose board in the coop that I needed to fix, and I kept putting it off,” at the wobble in Dwalin’s voice, Nori took the mug from him to put safely on the floor before shifting them about until he was leaning against the armrest, with Dwalin curled between his spread legs, head resting on his shoulder. In his grief Dwalin seemed so small that all Nori wanted to do was wrap him up and protect him from the world.

“You couldn’t have known a fox would come.”

“I should have fix the board, but I didn’t and now my girls are _dead_ ,” the last came out on a sob.

Tightening his arms around Dwalin, Nori cooed, murmuring assurances, platitudes, and general soothing nonsense as tears soaked into his t-shirt covered shoulder.

Blinking his own eyes from unexpected dampness, Nori gently rocked Dwalin. The sight and feel of his boyfriend’s tears unnerved him slightly, it wasn’t something you’d normally associate with the big, gruff man, but everyone had a soft spot that could lay them low, and Nori knew that his chickens were most definitely a soft spot for Dwalin. To have ten of them killed at once, was a blow he’d not quickly recover from.

“How’s everyone else?” he asked, feeling a bit ridiculous asking such a thing about poultry, but for Dwalin’s birds, it seemed like the right thing to say.

“A bit rattled, I spent the day trying to fox proof everything and they wouldn’t leave my side,” Dwalin answered, lifting his head from Nori’s shoulder, eyes flicking to the window. His face was a red blotchy mess, shining with tears and snot. “I keep going out to check on them, even though they’ve been shut up for the night and I _know_ nothing can get in to them.”

“Do you want to check on them again?” Nori asked, wiping at Dwalin’s face with a corner of his shirt, he’d done the same to Ori enough times that he didn’t mind the smears it left on the fabric, “Then we can have an early night, curl up in bed and watch a film or something?”

A small smile twitched at the corners of Dwalin’s mouth as he nodded in grateful agreement.

It didn’t take long to check the coops, making sure everything was secure. Nori waited patiently as Dwalin walked around, looking under bushes and darkened corners for any sign of unwelcome visitors.

Finally done Dwalin turned to Nori and the hand he held out to him, a gentle smile softening his face. Nori knew that tonight Dwalin didn’t need his snark, or his innuendos. He needed comfort, and no small amount of love.

“Come on,” he coaxed.

With one last look to the dark shapes of his coops, Dwalin took the hand offered him, allowing Nori to tug him back into the house, ceding himself into the smaller man’s care for the night.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is entirely the result of having been told that the ducks we swapped for the turkeys have been killed by a fox, and the woman who we gave them too is absolutely devastated over it, this was not long after a close family friend almost lost all of his birds to a fox, and we had one sniffing round the front of our house. Having a fox visit is not a fun experience.
> 
> I'd like to point out that though it is very upsetting to have a fox kill one's animals, at no point do I, or any characters in stories I write, blame the fox itself. Though we may hate the particular animal that did it, we do not blame them as it is merely an unfortunate side to nature that we can only try and take precautions against.
> 
> If this is a bit OOC for these guys then my apologies, also apologies for the somewhat abrupt ending.  
> The next instalment should be a bit more upbeat...hopefully.


End file.
